Tuesday morn

Tuesday May 25, 2009

. . . I sincerely hope that you had a good long, holiday weekend and were able to enjoy some relaxation time, some time with family and friends, and I mostly hope that you took a few moments to remember and think about the veterans in your family, in your life, and those you never met.

. . . .I've got a feeling that this is a guy thing, but have you ever noticed that a lot of the great stories that you hear at work, the ones that have you laughing so hard you can't stand it, normally begin with the person telling the story starting off with a sentence that goes something like "So I told him 'Here, hold this for me so I don't spill it, and watch, this is gonna be so cool' . . ."

. . . .At 10 AM, or thereabouts today, President Obama will announce his pick for the Supreme Court to replace Justice Souter. It's Judge Sonia Sotomayor from the Circuit Court of Appeals, which should be an enormously popular pick. Judge Sotomayor is from the Bronx. She was born in the projects, when her father died when she was 8, her mother, a nurse raised both of them. She wound up at Princeton and Yale on scholarship, and has had an exemplary career since. Her confirmation process should go smoothly, and this should be an enormously popular pick. She of course, will have to face the Republican and Right wing opposition that will be thrown up as she will be branded and labeled, don't listen to any of that crap. She is someone who has worked in this lifetime for the people.

. . . . I'm working on a piece for later this week that several of you are contributing to, thanks for what you've sent so far, as they all come in, I'll put them all together and do that as a compiled piece.

. . . .Regular reader, contributor and wise woman Barbara V. sends this one along:

Received on email: I WAS BUYING FOOD THE OTHER DAY AT THE COUNTRY MARKET. ON THE LABEL OF SOME PRODUCTS IT SAID 'FROM CHINA'.

FOR EXAMPLE THE "OUR FAMILY" BRAND OF THE MANDARIN ORANGES SAYS RIGHT ON THE CAN 'FROM CHINA'.

SO FOR A FEW MORE CENTS I BOUGHT THE LIBERTY GOLD BRAND OR THE DOLE SINCE IT'S FROM CALIF.

TAKES FOREVER JUST TO BUY FOOD AND DO LABEL READING ! !

Are we Americans as dumb as we appear or is it that we just do not think? While the Chinese, knowingly and intentionally, export inferior and even toxic products and dangerous toys and goods to be sold in American markets, the media wrings its hands and criticizes the Bush Administration for perceived errors.

Yet 70% of Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended..

Well duh, why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges?

SIMPLY DO IT YOURSELF, AMERICA!!

Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says 'Made in China' or 'PRC' (and that now includes Hong Kong), simply choose another product, or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, and you will be equally amazed at what you can do without.

Who needs plastic eggs to celebrate Easter? If you must have eggs, use real ones and benefit some American farmer. Easter is just an example, the point is do not wait for the government to act. Just go ahead and assume control on your own.

THINK ABOUT THIS: If 200 million Americans refuse to buy just $20 each of Chinese goods, that's a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor fast!

The downside? Some American businesses will feel a temporary pinch from having foreign stockpiles of inventory. Wahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

The solution? Let's give them fair warning and send our own message. Most of the people who have been reading about this matter are planning on implementing this on June 4, and continue it until July 4. That is only one month of trading losses, but it will hit the Chinese for 1/12th of the total, or 8%, of their American exports. Then they will at least have to ask themselves if the benefits of their arrogance and lawlessness were worth it.

Remember, June 4 to July 4.

EVEN BETTER, START NOW.

Send this to everybody you know. Let's show them that we are Americans and NOBODY can take us for granted.

If we can't live without cheap Chinese goods for one month out of our lives, WE DESERVE WHAT WE GET!

. . . .It does make good sense, going beyond the some of the more inflammatory sentences in the e-mail she received, it speaks to two things; sustainability and local economy, two tremendously important concepts that we have to get down pat before we can move ahead.

. . . .Local economies are simple; shop local, buy local, support local and it affects on a national scale and globally. Think not? Yes, it does. The viewpoint that's hard to get to is understanding that each of our actions are important, that we are important and that we all can make a difference. Yes, if only one person does it, it still makes a difference. It's about economies of scale (don't you hate it? I keep making you remember those college classes). The difference is in the scale of things. If just you or I do it, then it still makes a difference, only the percentage change that it makes is small. If we all do it, then the impact is much, much larger; as actions by large groups of people tend to have impact that is "greater than the sum of it's whole", generally on a logarithmic scale.

. . . .We're at the height of growing season here in the United States. It would be easily possible to buy not just American grown fruits and vegetables, but fruits and vegetables grown locally, near you, and keep the money, (which desperately needs to flow right now), flowing in your local community. This as well, in a general sense, supports your local organic farmer (who is not going to some outlaw if H.R. 875 passes. What? Like Michelle Obama is going to made the First Felon as well as the First Lady for planting an organic garden? C'mon!). Support your local fresh vegetable/fruit stand.

. . . .The other point it speaks to is sustainability, which regular reader Kay M. spoke to last week (post down below) in a letter that she submitted her Congressional representatives and posted here. I'll quote it, in part, again:

Another fundamental difference is that I support economic localization.
"Economic localization occurs when a region, county, city-even a
neighborhood-frees itself from overdependence on the global economy and
invests in local resources to produce a significant portion of the goods,
services, food, and energy it consumes.

We believe a strategy that brings production of vital goods and services
close to home is more environmentally, economically, and socially
sustainable than a strategy based on economic globalization." (text in
quotes copied from
http://www.rprogress.org/sustainable_economics/economic_localization.htm)

This statement completely sums up the process by which we can structure our
economy to be invulnerable to security threats resulting from the
destruction of centralized power facilities (localization will do away with
most centralization of power sources), as well as those threats created by
global shortages of fossil or bio fuels.

Sustainable, localized power, food and water (where the potential for such
resource growth exists) will provide local funding for local, small
business; savings and jobs for the local community; local investment
vehicles as opposed to "Wall Street" and the big banks that got us into this
mess; and an inexpensive, inexhaustable energy for each community, which
will in turn spur consumer spending.

. . . .The link that Kay provides is to a public policy think tank called Redefining Progress, whose mission statement reads "Shifting public policy to achieve a sustainable economy, a healthy environment and a just society". Their mission statement also goes on to read:

Redefining Progress is the nation’s leading public policy think tank dedicated to smart economics. We find solutions that ensure a sustainable and equitable world for future generations.

While conventional models for economic growth discount such assets as clean air, safe streets, and cohesive communities, Redefining Progress integrates these assets into a more sustainable economic model. Working with government and advocacy groups, Redefining Progress develops innovative policies that balance economic well-being, environmental preservation, and social justice.

Our policy initiatives address pressing environmental issues such as global climate change and natural resource depletion, while ensuring that both the burdens and the benefits of these policies are shared equally among affected communities. We inject ground-breaking ideas into public dialogue, policy discourse, and decision-making in compelling and nonpartisan ways.

. . . Touching on global climate change, Muir Grey, a guest columnist in the London Times Online puts this piece in, speaking to the medical community of not just Great Britain, but worldwide - "Climate Change is the Cholera of Our Time".

Climate change will hit the poorest nations hardest, but it will affect us too. In the summer of 2003, la canicule, an unexpected heatwave, killed 14,000 elderly people in France. Rising temperatures will bring that type of problem to our shores. Our health services will be put under pressure by severe weather and floods. But it is the global effects that will hit us, and especially our children and grandchildren, because of the effect that climate change will have on world food and water supplies; millions of climate refugees will disrupt the borders of even an island nation.

Smoking, Aids, swine flu? They all pale into insignificance compared to climate change’s threat to health. That proposition will instantly provoke a hostile reaction from the diminishing band of climate-change sceptics. But as a doctor of 40 years’ standing who has been involved in running public health services for 30 years, I know that the evidence is good enough to make action, not inaction, the sensible choice. An empirical view of the data shows that delay will not just increase the amount of preventable harm, it may take us past a point of no return.

So the medical profession must accept responsibility in the campaign for change. However, with a few notable exceptions, doctors are effectively silent on the health threat that will come to define our age. My fellow doctors cannot just leave this issue to their leaders, to the presidents of the Royal Colleges and to the members of the Climate and Health Council. They should be active in their local communities, where they are known and respected, using their influence to press for national and international action.

. . . .And from the British Daily Mail Online, David Derbyshire on why global warming is the biggest health threat of the 21st Century:

Climate change is the biggest health threat of the 21st century, leading academics claimed last night.

Those who fail to take the issue seriously are as morally reprehensible as 18th-century slave traders, they said.

A British report said rising global temperatures will trigger food shortages, droughts, wars and floods over the next 100 years, pushing billions into ill-health, disease and poverty.

. . . .Continuing on with sustainability, we finished with the series from NPR on the upgrading, improving, renovating the nation's electrical transmission grid last week (see below), but there's plenty more to read and think about. Again, it's not high-tech, it's not sexy, it's not sleek, but it's the biggest bang for the buck we can get. Over 50% of the power used to power a light bulb in your house, an electrical appliance, a fan is lost in the grid just plainly due to inefficiencies; in some regions of the country as much as 96% is lost. Improving energy efficiency again is about sustainability, and about acting locally. Call your local electrician (me, preferably!) and have him come to your house, inspect and tighten every wire and connection. Have him look at whether or not your house has the proper size wiring and circuits for appliances. Have him look at your load balance. Let him talk to you about the age of your appliances. The money you'd spend on a new refrigerator if yours is ten years old will be more than made back in the first year of electrical bills, and will be money savings to you, and energy efficiency savings in the future. The couple of hundred dollars you'd spend on a qualified electrician you'd make back in the first 6 months of bills.

. . . From the folks over at Renewable Energy:

The "business case" for energy efficiency is fairly straightforward: using less energy means paying less for energy. But a simple cost-benefit analysis might overlook some very important benefits that efficiency brings.

At this point, there is little doubt that regulation of carbon dioxide is coming, with the power sector as a primary target. While there are technologies both available and in development to mitigate CO2 emissions from power plants, the fact remains that the easiest ton of CO2 to remove from the atmosphere is the one that is not emitted in the first place. Greater energy efficiency in the T&D system means lower emissions in generation to deliver the same amount of consumed energy.

Greater efficiency also has a direct impact on the role of renewables, specifically in terms of the percentage of the total fuel mix they account for. Lowering the amount of energy consumed (or lost) effectively increases the share of renewables in the total, assuming the gains are offset by reducing the amount of energy produced from traditional generation sources.

Fuel conservation and diversity is another strong selling point for efficiency, and here the benefits extend well beyond economic and even environmental considerations. Reducing US dependence on foreign fuel supplies—be they oil, natural gas or even coal—pays obvious dividends from a security standpoint, and the less we use, the less we have to buy.

Finally, within the context of the power system itself, it's important to recognize how interrelated energy efficiency is with grid reliability. In many areas of the US, transmission constraints have reached the point where they not only cost consumers billions of dollars in congestion charges, they threaten the integrity of the power system itself. Over the past twenty years, the situation has continued to deteriorate to the point where now the question of installing a new line is nearly moot in some locations. By the time it was completed, demand would long since have outstripped the ability of the local grid to meet it, so a short-term solution must be implemented in the interim.

Improving transmission capacity is also vital to the integration of renewables like wind and solar which are often located far from the loads they must serve. For that reason, the cause of efficiency in the T&D system is in perfect alignment with that of expanding renewable generation. As renewable energy technologies continue to grow in importance, the potential impact of energy efficiency cannot be overstated. With the array of technologies and methodologies now available, efficiency stands ready to play a much larger role in the energy equation.

. . . . .A Sherpa from Nepal who holds the world's record for climbing Mount Everest warned on Monday that the mountain's glaciers are shrinking, noticeably.

. . . .Paul Krugman, whom regular readers of this column will know that I admire, as one of the world's leading economists, speaking on Monday said the the world economy had avoided "utter catastophe":

The world economy has avoided "utter catastrophe" and industrialized countries could register growth this year, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said on Monday.

"I will not be surprised to see world trade stabilize, world industrial production stabilize and start to grow two months from now," Krugman told a seminar.

"I would not be surprised to see flat to positive GDP growth in the United States, and maybe even in Europe, in the second half of the year."

. . . .Krugman, Noriel Roubini, George Soros and others took part in a symposium on the economic crisis sponsored by the economic crisis back on April 30th. You can read excerpts from the transcript here.

. . . .And while you missed it over the weekend; the extreme Right wingnuts had at it again (after all, why waste a good holiday weekend doing something constructive like being with your family) - Conservative radio host "Mancow" Muller voluntarily had himself waterboarded on Friday, he lasted 6 seconds, and came up saying 'This is torture' - Colin Powell fired right back at Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney, and you know what, I'll take a decorated combat soldier and former National Security Advisor to Bush 1 and Secretary of State to Bush 2 over a drug-addled sweating windbag and an angry, demented, bitter loser anyday - Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who was also the governor of Pennsylvania said that Limbaugh was "shrill" and more hindrance than help and disputed and disagreed with Dick Cheney's assertions that the country was less safe under Obama - Bill Maher dismissed Sean Hannity's criticism of him as "terrible sexual repression" - the former senior interrogator in Iraq completely dissected and shredded Dick Cheney's speech from last week as full of lies and inaccuracies.

. . . .Outta here for today.

. . . .Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do. Seize the precious moments, before they slip through your hands. This rodeo is a one-way ticket and no one gets out alive, we don't get to dictate the terms and circumstances of how the ticket gets punched. So, it's not about yesterday or tomorrow, it's about right here, right now. This ain't no dress rehearsal. Change yourself, change your world, and in so doing, change the world around you.

. . . Got your back, out there in the night

The Desolation Angel
[where: Hell, Michigan]